In the recent past, media that can be optically marked with a visible image or label have become available. For optical discs on which a user may store his own data (such as, for example, CD-R/RWs and DVD+/-R/RWs), the laser in an optical drive that writes the data may also be used to perform the labeling operations. In some cases, these optical discs are coated or fabricated with a layer of laser-imageable material. With regard to labeling, a computer application program typically displays an image of the optical disc, and allows a user to specify the text, graphics, and images that will be optically marked on the disc. In this manner the user can preview the results before the labeling operation is performed. However, it can be desirable in many applications to use optical discs having artwork that is preformed on the optical disc. For example, such artwork may be descriptive of the company that is producing the discs and the artwork may be, for instance, the company logo. Or, the artwork may be descriptive of the data contents of the disc, such as a depiction of a record label on a CD on which music files are to be stored.
Such artwork is typically silk-screened or ink-printed on the surface of the optical disc. As a result, the regions of the disc that are occupied by the artwork do not contain laser-imageable material or the laser-imageable material is covered by the artwork, and thus these regions are not optically labelable. It is desirable that the computer application program used to specify the label data indicate to the user those regions that are not optically labelable, so that the user can avoid placing any label data in those regions. It is further desirable that an image of the preformed artwork be displayed along with the user-defined label data, so that that the user may see the most accurate preview possible of the actual labeling results. However, in many cases this is not now possible. For these and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.